Periodical
This budget was telegraphed and then leaked more than any other, and all the warnings were preparing people for the worst. Tax and spend it certainly was.
Read ArticleFinance
Pre-budget statements made by the new Chancellor and Prime Minister have already damaged the UK economy. Will the budget make things worse?
Read ArticlePeriodical
The majority of tax legislation in the UK is confusing, and support for SMEs is often ineffective, so why is S/EIS any different?
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A successful entrepreneur or founder of a start-up needs to use many of the same techniques as a successful athlete or sports team.
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Founders and entrepreneurs have to have a determination and resilience that often distinguishes them from those that are paid employees. It is not only that they have to find...
Read ArticleFunding in 2023
Having made the decision to raise equity funding, and assuming that you know how much you are looking to raise, you must then decide the best place to raise that funding. This...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
It has been said that ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going’. But in reality, when a recession is looming and the business environment gets even tougher than normal...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Most entrepreneurs, and indeed the early-stage businesses themselves, share many of the same challenges and experiences along their journey. This is basically true irrespective...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Working with the right partners can make the difference between success and failure in almost any scenario, but this is even more true when running an early-stage business. As...
Read ArticleTop Tips
When establishing a start-up, or later on during the whole scale-up journey, there is one general concept that holds good, and that is that you should try to under promise and...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
One of the most difficult things to being a founder or running an early-stage business is the lack of human resources and the sheer amount and diversity of work that needs to be...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
These are tough times for many businesses. Rapid inflation and so rising input costs. Rising interest rates leading to increased financial costs. Squeezed consumers buying less...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
To be a successful entrepreneur means that you have to run a successful business. That in turn requires your business to sell products or services that customers want to buy and...
Read ArticleChallenges & Top Tips
Welcome to a new series of articles for Startups Magazine. In this series we will look at some of the more common challenges that are faced by early-stage businesses and some of...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
So far in this ‘Back to Basics’ series we have looked at nine fundamental areas that entrepreneurs and would-be founders either consider or should be considering, both before...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Anyone that has started their own business, and even those that have thought about it but not made the jump as yet, or indeed decided not to do so in the end, all recognise that...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
It has often been said that cash is king. This does not of course mean cash itself, but the phrase refers to a company’s cash flow and how it manages the flows of payments into...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Sometimes in business, and indeed in life itself, it is very easy to miss the obvious or, put another way, not to realise that some very basic truths or something that should be...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
In any aspect of life, each of us will have different dreams and aspirations, and what we wish to achieve. This is no different for entrepreneurs and business founders. And why...
Read ArticleBack to Basics
Having decided whether to start your entrepreneurial journey as a sole founder or as a co-founder you will then be able to properly develop your idea and your business. Whatever...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
This article could have been entitled ‘data and financials’ but so many of you would not have got even this far. But the truth is that data and your financials are not just...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Having decided that the entrepreneurial life is for you, it is then necessary to think about how you will actually make that best happen. The specific legal structure that you...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
For anyone starting a business there is that delicious and intoxicating mixture of excitement tinged with fear. Both these are driven by stepping into the unknown and doing...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Have you ever thought of setting up your own business? Have you already done so? What made you want to do this? In truth, the answers are very different for each of us but...
Read ArticleStart-up to Scale-up
Welcome to a new series of articles for Startups Magazine. Over the next few months I would like to invite you to accompany me on a journey; a journey that many readers will...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
What exactly is an Advisory Board and why is it so important to growing your business? This is a question that I am often asked by founders of early stage businesses. Thankfully..
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Many things in businesses are reliant upon achieving the right balance. Sometimes this balance can be easy to achieve and other times it can be much more difficult to obtain...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Business, and the economy as a whole, can be very much like the English weather – sunshine and showers. We all know that long range forecasts are less accurate than short range...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Systems and procedures are crucial to the running of every successful business. Some company structures are inevitably simpler than others, and the complexity of the business...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Timing, it is often said, is everything. And this can certainly be true in the world of business, as almost everything that you or your business does can be affected in one way...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
A week after the next steps out of lockdown were taken the differences are palpable. A very large percentage of the population have been shopping in ‘non-essential’ shops, sat...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
How will people and businesses act now that we are finally coming out of what is generally expected to be the last lockdown? Not only is that the question that every business...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
On April 6th 2021 a new Government loan scheme has come into force to help those businesses with the next steps after they have been affected by the economic difficulties and...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Entrepreneurs and business founders typically work long, hard hours, where the norm is much more likely to be a 70 plus hour working week rather than a more traditional 35 hour...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
It’s not what you know but who you know. Or so the old saying goes. Whenever that is said though it always seems to be said in a disparaging way, as in the ‘old school tie’ is ...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Some very interesting statistics were released this week relating to trade over the past twelve months. What was so interesting about these two particular sets of statistics is...
Read ArticleThe Next Steps
Welcome to my new series ‘The Next Steps’. Every business owner and director, at every stage of a business’s life, should always be considering the next steps. If it is not...
Read ArticlePeriodical
“What will the new year bring us?” “365 opportunities!” This was the question and answer in a cartoon that was sent to me a few days ago, showing two people sitting on a hill...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
Looking back on 2020 and learning as many lessons as possible is a very worthwhile exercise for all of us. At the beginning of this series, nearly three months ago, I paraphrased..
Read ArticleLessons Learned
Businesses, and indeed stock markets, hate uncertainty. Sadly, there is no doubt that 2020 has been full of uncertainty at every stage. And whilst the main focus...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
How much do you know about the Kickstart Scheme that was introduced by the Government in September 2020? If you are a startup or early stage business, my guess would probably be...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
Are you working from home? Do you enjoy it? Given a totally free choice how would you like to split your time between working from home and working in the office? These are...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
For everyone around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of all of our lives. But what lessons have we learned about virtual verses reality? In many ways...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
As we enter Lockdown 2.0 we are at least all much better prepared than we were in March when we entered Lockdown 1.0 and went into the total unknown. We are better prepared than...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
Everything in life and business is a learning opportunity. The fact that all of us learn more, and more quickly, from our mistakes and when times are difficult, rather than when...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
In business, it is always important to react to changing circumstances and this has never been more true than in 2020. Regular readers will know that I have written a lot...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
Communication has always been key in running a business, and indeed in most other aspects of our lives. In 2020 many lessons have been learned or reinforced and it has reminded...
Read ArticleLessons Learned
As we enter the last quarter of 2020 I thought that it would be useful to take a look back at this extraordinary year and see what lessons can be learned from this remarkable...bl
Read ArticleTop Tips
What qualities make an entrepreneur? What character traits are typically seen in entrepreneurs? Are these qualities and character traits something that they are born with or...
Read ArticleTop Tips
Every business needs to constantly assess what it sells, to whom, and how it sells it. It also needs to constantly assess the market and its competitors, as well as attempting...
Read ArticleTop Tips
One thing that every early stage business should produce is a pitch deck, whether they are looking to raise external funding or not. A pith deck is typically a 15 to 20 page...
Read ArticleTop Tips
Founders typically establish a business with one of two game plans in mind. They either want a lifestyle business and one that fits their work life balance, or they want to build..
Read ArticleTop Tips
It is often said that turnover is vanity and profit is sanity. But, even more importantly, do not forget that cash is king. Put simply, businesses fail because they do not have...
Read ArticleTop Tips
As with everything about starting a business, different people do it for different reasons, and they have different levels of ambition. Some people want it to remain a side hustle.
Read ArticleTop Tips
According to the Office for National Statistics 213,285 businesses failed in the UK in the first half of 2020, a 14% increase on the same period in the previous year. Without...
Read ArticleTop Tips
We all communicate every day in both our social and our business lives but, let’s be honest, some do it so much better and more effectively than others. The very word...
Read ArticleTop Tips
Some founders come up with their business ideas alone, whilst others do so with friends or associates. Some founders wish to stay as sole founders, whilst others prefer to work...
Read ArticleTop Tips
Having set up a business there are some very logical next steps that have common features irrespective of what your business will do. Any business needs to sell its product or...
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Welcome to a new series of articles where I will provide practical top tips on a wide range of decisions and challenges that early stage businesses have to make every day. Here...
Read ArticlePeriodical
Technology, especially new technology, has always had something of a divisive effect; that is it can be seen as black or white, working in good ways or bad. If we look back...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
It goes without saying that for any business, in any sector, in order for it to survive, grow and prosper, sales are imperative, because sales generate profit and cash flow and...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
According to UK Government statistics some 660,000 new companies are established each year and many of these will have plans to scale rather than to remain a micro business...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
For those founders at the beginning of their entrepreneurial journey, whether for the first time or as a serial founder, there is a question that I overhear time and time again...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
As spring turns into summer and the fears of lockdown turn into the uncertainties of release, many early stage companies are effectively having to start all over again...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
After nine long weeks of lockdown, businesses are starting to re-open or, at least, planning to reopen in the near future. For some of the luckier ones this might be possible...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Many businesses ask me many questions but one of the questions that has become more common over the last few months is whether their business should pivot. Regular readers will...
Read ArticlePeriodical
Founders and entrepreneurs need to be many things. They need to be enthusiastic and energetic, intelligent and inventive, resourceful and resilient, tenacious and talented. But...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
As we are all starting to hope that the end, or at least a temporary reprieve, is in sight, thoughts are starting to turn to how we and our businesses can bounce back. In fact...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
As we emerge blinking into the light post lockdown, what will the ‘new normal’ look like? The questions that I am overhearing have changed very recently, from those covering how...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
The longer the coronavirus lockdown goes on, the more my conversations with startups have varied from the norm. Just another example of ‘the new normal’ maybe, but recently...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Any business at any time has to constantly be considering how best to trade in the present, and how best to trade in the future. This is equally true in the good times as it is...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Coronavirus is on everyone’s lips, not literally but figuratively. And for very good reason. It seems so long ago already that the only thing in the news was all things Brexit...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
In any business, at any time, cash is king and cashflow is much more important than turnover, and in the short term it can often even be more important than profit. If turnover...
Read ArticlePeriodical
The government backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) has been rolled out at unprecedented speed, and the size of the financial packages being made...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
These are strange times, unsettling times, and if I am honest this is not a normal question that I overhear much in more normal times, but recently THE question that I keep...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Any business at any stage of its life must be able to adapt and change to changing circumstances. One of the very real benefits that early stage businesses have is that they are...
Read ArticlePeriodical
My ‘day job’ is as a business and finance consultant working with early stage businesses from start up to mid-sized corporates, and I am also a Mentor at Cass Business School...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Whatever any of us care to call it - funding, finance, getting investors, or any other variation on the theme – obtaining finance remains one of the biggest areas of both concern..
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
For anyone starting a business there is that delicious and intoxicating mixture of excitement tinged with fear. That is partly the fear of the unknown but it is also very much...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
When anyone is considering doing anything important and potentially life changing in their lives it always pays to think hard, do as much research and gather as much information...
Read ArticleFinance
In my previous article in this series I set out why I thought that having cash in an instant bank or building society savings account, and especially in a cash ISA, was not good..
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Of all the questions that I overhear or am asked, the one with the most variants is without doubt ‘how long will it take? The simple reason that it has the most variants is...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
As a Mentor, one of the things that I am often asked about is how to find reliable partners, and indeed who those partners should be. I recently overheard that very point...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
One of the very common themes that I come across with entrepreneurs and founders is that they are generally over confident. About everything! That goes from the valuation...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
There are many reasons why living in the UK makes life much easier than living in most other countries. This is in our personal lives and wellbeing but also in our working lives...
Read ArticleOverheard in a Startup...
Over the years that I have been working with startups and early-stage businesses I have overheard many different things. The majority of these follow the normal concerns...
Read ArticleFinance
Having started to understand that we owe it to ourselves that we really do need to know a little more about our personal finances it is easy to go one of two ways...
Read ArticleFinance
In my opening article in this ‘Money Matters!’ series I asked a number of basic questions about personal finance that everyone should be able to answer at least in general terms...
Read ArticlePeriodical
So…you’ve decided you’re going to set up your own business and this time you are really going to do it...
Read ArticleFinance
I have been in and around the financial service sector the whole of my working life and indeed studied Commerce and Economics at school, so I guess that that shapes my view on...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
This week was quite typical in that it was an unusual mix of many of the things that I get involved with as a mentor and that I have written about in the past. There was some...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
This week I met with Deputy Chief Constable Jo Shiner at Sussex Police to talk about all the many ways that businesses of any size can work together with the police for the...
Read ArticleMentor's Journal
Following on from the nine articles in the ‘A Mentor’s Perspective’ series that I wrote recently that looked at some of the main points that any startup or early stage business...
Read ArticleMentor's Perspective
In the first of this series of articles we looked at the fact that there was actually quite a lot of help available to you when you set up your own business, and specifically we...
Read ArticleMentor's Perspective
In this, the first of an occasional series, I will be passing on my thoughts and observations in my capacity as a Mentor and how accepting the help that is available to startup...
Read Articlein British English
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